#cyrus studies

[goolixsite]

The Corporate Cult

I often see people compare Team Galactic to a cult, which makes some sense. Their leader is secretive, hidden out of the public eye (Looker did not know who he was and had to inform us of basic biographical detail like “he’s 27”), hides the true nature of their organization, and gives a triumph of the will speech with banners to a crowd of enamored grunts. The tiered nature of access to information (grunts know basically nothing – commanders know vaguely there will be a new world – only the boss knows the new world will be spiritless) definitely sounds like a cult.

Most striking is the level of devotion the members of Team Galactic have for their leader. Mars sounds ready to throw herself on a pike if he so much as implies he wants that. Jupiter quits Galactic after Cyrus disappears and Charon fails to match him in evil rizz. His speeches are exciting events that have grunts ecstatically shouting “Master Cyrus is the greatest!” Despite the fact he is entirely emotionally unavailable, he’s capable of inspiring religious fervor in his grunts. The grunt in Pastoria delivering the bomb appears on the verge of rapture as he runs away from you: “The new universe that our boss was talking about… It’s making me giddy thinking about it…” and he’s in awe of his boss’s technical prowess: “It would take a scientific genius to make something like this [bomb]… Therefore, our boss, who made this, is a scientific mechanical genius!”

But Galactic is not just a straight cult. There’s another very important concept they’re exploring – a corporation. Team Rocket was organized crime, Magma/Aqua are ecoterrorists, Plasma is a special interest group, and Flare is a pay-to-play club, but Galactic is treated like a normal workplace. Officially, they're trying to harness cosmic energy. Saturn says they run commercials. Their buildings and labs aren’t hidden underground or behind a different operation. They are apparently flush with cash and able to build or renovate buildings very quickly, as the Team Galactic building in Eterna City went up rapidly enough that the grunts are impressed and the residents of the town are shocked. People are divided on whether they’re good or bad. Some people admire them, like the kid in Eterna who says ‘Team Galactic looks so cool.’ A man in Oreburgh sounds concerned: “Hmmm! What, or who, is this Team Galactic?! They make wonderful claims of a dream energy source on one hand… But rumor has it, they steal Pokémon from others by force.”

The faux legitimacy around them matters because it allows them to get away with things for longer than they might have otherwise. Despite the fact they’re committing crimes like theft in matching uniforms, the buildings and ads and slogans seem to have some people convinced that they’re a legitimate if unfortunate enterprise. People suspect there’s something weird about them, but the Pokemon world is apparently very gullible because the corporation that makes you wear a spacesuit and has visibly branded members committing crimes isn’t investigated until much later.

This brings me to one of my favorite parts of the “legit” aspect of Team Galactic – the corporate structure. Members of Team Galactic are highly concerned about their pay, promotions, and demotions. The Veilstone HQ has a nap room, a flat-screen TV for entertainment, and free drinks (though they’re apparently "murky" and "sinister"). They operate on a brutal perfectionist logic where losing means that you’ll be knocked several pegs down the ladder. One grunt who was apparently “like, this close to getting [his] promotion to Commander” complains that losing to you means he’ll “probably get busted down to the gruntiest of the grunts.” Another grunt cries to you that his partner got fed up with Galactic after they took his Pokemon and he decided to quit Galactic and leave the country.

Combining the mundane monetary motivation of a corporation with the life-changing promise of a cult is an inspired move for an evil team. You’re working for a grandiose near-religious vision that you don’t have permission to fully understand. You’re also concerned about whether your promotion is at risk if you lose in battle.

[goolixsite]

"Incomplete Spirit" is an odd translation

Cyrus talks a lot about how the “spirit” is vague and “incomplete.” This has long been confusing to me and to other players, who are unsure of what is meant by "spirit" and how it is "incomplete." I took a look at the Japanese and have some notes to share on the translation!

KOKORO - SPIRIT OR HEART?

The Japanese word in question is “kokoro” (心). This word is variously translated as heart or spirit. The meaning is: “The organ that governs the human intellect and emotional–volitional mental functions, and also its activity. Used as a concept opposed to “body” or “matter,” and, by extension, also applied metaphorically to whatever corresponds to a “mind” in various things.” 'Kokoro' can have sub-parts: “Refers specifically to one aspect of human mental activity-cognition, emotion, or will-taken separately.” If this sounds familiar from the game, you are right! ‘kokoro’ is the sum of emotion (Mesprit), willpower (Azelf), and intellect (Uxie).

When translated to English, this word is often translated as ‘heart’. You can actually see a very similar definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: “Heart: In the most general sense: the mind (including the functions of feeling and volition as well as intellect).” That being said, ‘heart’ often has an emotional connotation to it. We talk of following one’s head versus one’s heart, which suggests that intellect and emotion are separate things.

So if we don’t do “heart”, what do we go with? There is “spirit”, the word the translators decided upon: “The animating intelligence or sentient element or aspect of a person, as the seat of action, reason, and feeling, and as the source of desire; the will.“

We can see there is overlap between “spirit” and “heart”, but the connotations are subtly different. “Heart” does refer to the immaterial aspects of a human, but with a bias towards emotionality. “Spirit”, theoretically, could be more balanced. The phrase “the human spirit”, for example, seems to include this balance between emotion, cognition, and volition. All things considered, it’s not a bad translation for ‘kokoro’ in this context.

But it’s not without tradeoffs. For one, “spirit” is not usually used as an abstract noun in the way that Cyrus uses it where he says “Nothing so vague and incomplete as spirit can remain.” For another, ‘kokoro’ is already often translated as ‘heart’ (basically any time I've seen it in an anime, it is translated as 'heart'), likely since “spirit” can have a religious or metaphysical aspect to it (e.g. “spirituality”).

Perhaps most importantly, Cyrus claims to be against ‘kokoro’ as a whole, but reading into the text and his actions, it’s not clear that this is true. Does he really show an issue with intellect and willpower? He himself is clearly incredibly dedicated and possesses, as a later game puts it, a “steadfast will.” He also clearly values knowledge and its acquisition. He never devalues intellect or willpower. All his contempt is aimed at one aspect of ‘kokoro’ - emotion. (Below quotes from the Japanese, emphasis mine.)

“Even so, I’m astonished by you. You have no real connection to those Pokémon, do you? And yet you came to save them out of nothing more than pity - such a trivial emotion. To be driven here by feelings like compassion or kindness, which arise from the [kokoro] - an imperfect thing - is utterly foolish. Having come here at the mercy of such vague emotions - I will make you regret it.”

“You are strong. And the source of that strength is kindness toward Pokémon, is it? …What a waste. Such things are nothing but illusions. Things that cannot be seen are unstable - things that fade away. Once something dies, it disappears entirely. That is why I killed all emotion within myself.”

“So you’re saying the [kokoro] is important, is that it!? That’s nothing but the idle talk of people who think they’ve lived  happy lives! What I’m feeling right now - this anger, this hatred, this outrage…  these ugly emotions are the fault of the [kokoro]’s imperfection!”

As if to hammer things home, he has specific beef with Mesprit, the emotion spirit. Mesprit lives by the player’s hometown, making it symbolically associated with the player. When you start Platinum, Cyrus is talking to Mesprit, calling it a “so-called legendary Pokemon” (JPN). In Diamond and Pearl, he is particularly surprised that Mesprit supports you: “And why-? The Pokémon of Lake Verity, Mesprit, appears at your side!?“ There’s this scene before you enter the Distortion World, when Giratina appears and sends Cyrus to the Distortion World. Then Azelf, Uxie, go into Distortion World and Mesprit pauses to look at you before going in. Mesprit is treated as distinct and important in the story compared to the other two Lake Spirits!

Combined with the text, it’s clear to me that while Cyrus may be talking about ‘kokoro’ in general, he is specifically bothered by emotion. And if that’s the case, then translating it as ‘heart’ makes more sense while still being a standard translation for ‘kokoro.’

I don’t think ‘spirit’ is a bad translation - I’m not a translator and I’m just reading dictionary entries. I don’t want to knock anyone’s work. I think there were tradeoffs with ‘spirit’ and ‘heart’ as translations. Personally, I think the ‘heart’ tradeoff would be worth it for clarity while still carrying that meaning of ‘the immaterial aspects of the human being.’ But it’s not perfect, and ‘spirit’ is a defensible translation.

FUKANZEN - INCOMPLETE OR IMPERFECT?

Let’s move to the other word, the one translated as “incomplete.” This word is 'fukanzen' (不完全). ‘Fu’ is a negation, so the word we want to look at is ‘kanzen’ (完全). Let’s look at the definition: “Necessary conditions, elements, etc., are all in place; nothing is lacking or defective. Also, the state of being so.”

It is variously translated as ‘completeness’ or ‘perfection’. ‘Fukanzen’ is thus ‘incomplete’ or ‘imperfect’. The English games chose to go with ‘incomplete.’

This is one where I do think that ‘perfect’ would have been better for the games. If you tell me “spirit is imperfect” or “the heart is imperfect,” I would understand what that means. However, “spirit is incomplete” is odd-sounding to me. When I hear that, the first question I ask myself is “what is it lacking?” Cyrus does not think that spirit is “lacking” anything. He believes it is defective - it does not work at all. His solution is not to add more to spirit, but to take it away entirely. This strongly contrasts with the word “incomplete”, which implies something is missing. If I make a house and I never add a roof, that house is incomplete because it is lacking a roof. (That house is also imperfect.) However, if I add two roofs, then the house is complete but messed up. The house has become imperfect again.

It is unclear to me why they went with “incomplete” rather than “imperfect” in this case. In the manga, Cyrus mentions that the spirit could “be completed” or “become complete”, which is more natural phrasing than “be perfected” (since the spirit could still only approach perfection, never reach it). However, Cyrus in the games never believes that spirit itself can be completed, and he views spirit as inherently corrupt.

As such, on the grounds of idiomaticity and philosophical consistency, I think “imperfect” would have been a better translation.

A FINAL TEST

As an aside, we can test the translations with this neat little section from the promo Galactic recruitment website for BDSP.

If you read the first character of each sentence, you get:

心のない完全へ

Which can be translated as: “Towards heartless perfection”

But if we use the other translations, we get:

“Towards spiritless perfection”

“Towards spiritless completion”

“Towards heartless completion”

Which makes the most sense to you? For me, it’s “toward heartless perfection.”

[goolixsite]

wow i wasnt expecting my old post on cyrus' eyebrows to be dug up with new sprite information, but that was a super cool addition. really cool site and reads of galactic and cyrus btw, i agree a lot with them.

id be interested in a post going over the music related to team galactic (especially the weirdness of cyrus having two versions between the ost disc and in game dppt) and how that relates to the group/cyrus as characters. i intended to do something like that ages ago, but lost steam cause im just not that well versed in music to really articulate it

Thank you for such kind words!

I have a lot of thoughts on the music of Team Galactic and I want to do a more full fledged write-up at one point, but I want to sketch my current thoughts real quick before I forget.

Firstly, I think that themes tend to be impressionistic over all – a boss theme is not just about expressing something about that boss, but about what it feels like to be the one battling the boss. As such, I view it as something from the perspective of the player facing the boss more than from the boss's perspective.

Secondly, to figure out what is and isn't important, I'd need to listen to the whole soundtrack because there are common techniques across the songs. For example, the bass is prominent in Cyrus’s theme! ...but also the Lake Spirits’ theme. I don't think that this is some deep correspondence between the Lake Spirit battle and Cyrus battle; I think Masuda was just really into having a bass riff form the spine of battle themes this generation. Similarly, Timpani appears in the battle theme for wild Pokemon as well as Cyrus’s theme. And ‘turnarounds’ appear in both Giratina’s theme and Cyrus’s theme. I haven't seriously listened to the whole soundtrack so I'm definitely missing things because of that.

With that in mind, a quick note of things I find curious about Cyrus’s theme especially compared to Galactic and other battle themes:

Shares basically no material with the Galactic and Commander themes. The Commander theme is a souped up version of the Galactic theme, recycling most of the melodic material. Galactic Boss uses entirely new material.

Most noticeable to me - his theme is in compound time – every beat subdivides into triplets instead of two eighth notes! This is interesting because it results in a ‘bouncy’ feel by itself. (e.g. Pirates of the Caribbean theme.) However, the aggressive kick drum makes it ‘chug’ more than bounce. This is very interesting because the other battle themes from DPP are in straight time. In fact, most Pokemon battle themes are in straight time. (I think Plasma’s theme is either compound or swing time? Don't remember off the top of my head.)

Pokemon battle themes in general like to focus on the movement from a flattened second degree to the first degree. This can borrow from the phrygian scale. However, Cyrus’s theme actually just runs entirely through a phrygian scale (some variant of it – too lazy to check now) from top to bottom (0:45-0:57). The section has a vaguely Middle Eastern feel to it. (This is funny because 'Cyrus' is a Persian name, but this is almost certainly a coincidence. Neat though!)

Oh yeah, the synths really really emphasize the movement from 1 to b2 back to 1! You can hear it come in at 0:05 and it continues throughout the song. The b2 creates dissonance with other notes of the major scale, so it creates tension, but the movement from b2 down to 1 is a strong resolution, so you're not in a permanent state of unease.

The opening melodic bit (0:14-0:17) is homage to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which famously appears in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Overall emotion the song seems to be going for is gravitas, awe, overwhelm. The piece balances straightforward inoffensive melodic parts (the horn bits at 0:25-0:35) with more abrasive parts (the arpeggiating synth going wild while the kicks and melody play in unison at 1:33-1:42), parts that evoke mystery/passion (the strings running through the phrygian scale), and general gravitas (the timpani part; the opening ‘strings’).

As for why the theme changes on repeat (with some instruments jumping up an octave), this appears to have been an error. I read this from someone else so I need to look later to confirm, but there is apparently no actual instruction to have certain instruments hop up an octave in the sound instructions for the theme. It seems to be a bug resulting from a timbre change instruction that is never “released”. A similar bug appeared in a FRLG theme as well.

Meanwhile the Galactic theme imo balances offputtingness and relaxedness. Galactic grunt theme has this very melodic bit (0:13-0:34) after the intro over a bassline that doesn't really change, which feels chill. Compare with the arpeggiating synths later (0:55-1:00) where the underlying chords change more quickly afterwards, which provide intensity. My take is they're trying to balance the fact Galactic grunts are silly people, but they're still actually threatening.

Uses the James Bond line cliche (or something very similar; I am away from keyboard): 5-b6-6-b6 before looping around to the beginning (1:05-1:16).

Galactic theme (and the variant, the Commander theme) feels like it could be a space rock song? Which is perhaps why the BDSP adaptation fully goes down that direction with the organs and the percussion.

Commander theme isn't one I've listened to in depth because I like the grunt one better so I'd have to look at that in the future.

Thanks for the question; I love looking into music stuff! I'd like to do a follow-up one day where I get audio clips (and get to a keyboard). Also to be clearer on the terminology. But yeah, good themes with interesting material to look at!